A carelessly discarded cigarette butt or teens fooling around with matches are considered probable causes of a brush fire that threatened to engulf the 5500 block of West Vancouver’s Parthenon Place on Friday afternoon.
A teen boy who was hanging out in the area with friends owned up to having likely started the fire by accident, said West Vancouver assistant fire chief Jeff Bush.
“All of it is extremely hazardous. This is not a good thing to be doing,” said Bush, noting the fire danger rating jumped to “high” on Monday. “This could have had disastrous results.”
After spotting huge plumes of smoke cascading over the rocky bluffs just off the water in West Vancouver Friday afternoon, Eagle Island resident Stephanie La Porta called 911 shortly before 2 p.m.
Two fire engines and nine firefighters scrambled to the scene only to find a good portion of the nine- by 15-metre blaze was inaccessible due to steep cliffs.
“Logistically (it was) very taxing,” said Bush. “Our crews would have had to put on harnesses and rope down to it.”
Watching from across the narrow reach, La Porta said the fire was almost extinguished at about 2:30 p.m. when a strong wind breathed new life into the blaze.
“We did have an offshore breeze working against us,” Bush said.
With hundreds of feet of hose snaking through the wooded area, West Van firefighters kept the fire at bay until two Vancouver fireboats arrived.
“They were able to hit what we couldn’t,” Bush said.
By 4 p.m. firefighters were dousing the last of the hot spots.
Noting that her stomach turned over when she saw the fire, La Porta said she felt relief when the last of the flames died down.
“It’s a tinderbox out there right now and all of Eagle Harbour could’ve gone up in flames,” she said.
Bush said that’s a message all residents need to heed as temperatures continue to climb.
“We are still having people throwing cigarettes out of cars on to the boulevard,” he said, and people are still smoking in parks despite a ban. Please use extreme caution in the wooded area,” he said.
– with files from Jane Seyd
